Porsche announced that it will close three of its subsidiaries and make significant adjustments to the company's business amid declining sales and pressure on profits. The three companies are battery subsidiary Cellforce Group, electric bicycle drive system business Porsche eBike Performance, and Ceticec, which provides in-vehicle network software to Porsche and Volkswagen Group. This round of adjustments will affect the employment of more than 500 employees in the three subsidiaries.
In this adjustment, Cellforce Group is one of the most watched "victims". This battery company was originally regarded as an important part of Porsche's electrification strategy, responsible for developing and producing high-performance batteries to achieve product differentiation in the electric vehicle market. But in August 2025, as Porsche gave up its plan to build its own battery factory, Cellforce has undergone a "reorganization" and gradually shifted to a pure R&D role. Now, Porsche has proposed a so-called "technology-open powertrain strategy", which is generally seen in the industry as a signal that it will rely more on external suppliers to provide key components such as batteries.
Porsche eBike Performance focuses on electric bicycle drive systems, and its business is closely related to the high-end electric bicycle products previously launched by Porsche. Cetitec, another company that was shut down, was a company that specialized in developing in-vehicle network software. It not only served Porsche, but also provided solutions for other brands of the Volkswagen Group. With the closure of these two subsidiaries, Porsche was forced to press the pause button on its layout in the areas of travel ecology and self-research of some software.
“We must refocus on our core business,” Porsche CEO and Executive Chairman Michael Leiters said in a statement. He called this focus "an indispensable basis" for the company's successful strategic restructuring, while acknowledging that the process forced the company to make "painful decisions" including closing subsidiaries. Leiters took over as CEO at the beginning of this year, and in March this year he made it clear for the first time that he would conduct a comprehensive "reorganization" of the business, with the goal of making Porsche "leaner, more efficient, and more attractive."
Before announcing the closure of the subsidiary, Porsche had begun to gradually withdraw from some non-core investments. In April, Porsche agreed to sell its stakes in Bugatti Rimac and Rimac Group to a consortium led by New York investment firm HOF Capital. This series of actions is seen as part of the new management's "downsizing" package, which is intended to concentrate resources to deal with the pressure on the main business.
Porsche's electrification transformation started off strongly: the launch of the Taycan in 2019 helped the brand establish a pioneering image in the high-end electric vehicle market. However, the advancement of subsequent electric models was not smooth, especially the development of the Macan Electric. Its launch was delayed by nearly two years due to the lagging development progress of Cariad, the Volkswagen Group's software department. Software bottlenecks have slowed down product pace and eroded Porsche's first-mover advantage in the luxury electric car race.
Judging from sales performance, pressure is becoming concentrated. In the first quarter of this year, Porsche's sales in the North American market fell by 11%, deliveries in the Chinese market fell sharply by 21%, and the European market also fell by 18%, with only a slight recovery in the German local market. In the face of these data, Porsche once attributed part of the problem to changes in the penetration rate and market acceptance of electric vehicles. However, in the context that electric vehicles have accounted for more than half of China's passenger car market, this explanation is obviously difficult to fully convince the outside world.
From a strategic perspective, the closure of Cellforce is a microcosm of the changing fortunes of Porsche’s electric vehicle program. A few years ago, Oliver Blume, then Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche, once stated that "battery cells are the combustion chamber of the future", emphasizing that battery cell technology will become the core competitiveness of the electric era. Today, in an environment where the pace of self-research is frustrated and product planning is delayed, Porsche is redirecting more resources to the update and revival of the internal combustion engine platform.
According to the company’s latest plan, those fuel vehicle platforms that were originally set to account for only a small proportion by 2030 are now back on the development agenda. At the same time, Porsche still plans to launch a new generation of electric models and gradually phase out some fuel models. For example, the fuel version of the Macan will be discontinued and the pure electric Macan will take over. Within this year, Porsche is also expected to add a fully electric version of the Cayenne and multiple derivative models to maintain its competitiveness in the high-end SUV segment.
Driven by its new CEO, the German brand known for its sports cars and performance is trying to find a new balance between electrification, profitability pressure and capital market expectations. Although the closing of the battery, electric bicycle and software subsidiaries is seen by the outside world as a retreat from "future business", within Porsche it is defined as "making way for downsizing" in the traditional main vehicle business. As strategic reorganization deepens, whether this century-old car company can regain its growth momentum after the pain of transformation remains to be tested by the market and time.